Columns
This week in Texas History: Spanish flu, our ancestors’ pandemic
By Bartee Haile
Just when Texans started to think the Spanish Flu had finally run its course, on Feb. 4, 1920 the State Health Department reported 2,514 new cases in the past 24 hours.
The deadly strain of influenza that caused the worldwide epidemic at the end of the First World War was called the Spanish Flu because the outbreak in that country that killed eight million in May 1918 received the most attention. As a noncombatant, Spain had no wartime censorship. Interestingly enough, the Spaniard...